Making Peace with My Food Budget

When I first put myself on a budget about 2.5 years ago, I had to cut out a lot of things to make it balance.  Things like clothing and online shopping got essentially eliminated.  Travel changed from fancy overseas vacations to trips within Canada that I purchased with AirMiles.  Visits to my favourite independent bookstore were replaced by the public library.

But one area that didn't get cut much was eating out.  Throughout training, eating out was my main form of entertainment and relaxation.  It was also an essential way of staying connected with friends and family at a time when my apartment was too messy and my fridge too empty to ever entertain at home.  So despite being ruthless with my spending in many areas, I averaged about $300 a month on eating out throughout my training.

And then I became an attending.

At first, I stuck to essentially the same budget, as I was somewhat obsessed with reaching a net worth of zero.  Once I had worked for about nine months, and I had achieved the long-dreamed-of positive net worth, I started to relax a bit more.  We started eating out a bit more often than before.  And ordering a few cocktails or a bottle of wine with our meals.  And dropping $100+ on dinner at a fancy restaurant, instead of $20 at one of the tasty dives that had previously been our favourites.

When I reviewed my spending for 2016, I was absolutely appalled to discover that I had averaged $600 per month on eating out.  SIX HUNDRED DOLLARS!  Which is utterly ridiculous.  And to make it even more crazy, that only accounts for my contribution to eating out.  My girlfriend was also paying for restaurant meals, and although she tends to pay for the less expensive meals given that she works for a non-profit agency and doesn't earn a physician's salary, she was probably still contributing a few hundred dollars a month to our eating out budget.  And, the $600 was an average for the year.  At the beginning of the year, it was closer to $300 a month, meaning that it was well over $600 a month by the end.  RIDICULOUS!

So in early January, I said enough is enough and put myself on a slightly strict eating out budget of $300 per month.  I figured that I had lived with that level of spending as a fellow, so it wouldn't be all that hard to go back to it.  I motivated myself with calculations of how much $300 a month would be worth at retirement (about $138,000 if I retire in 20 years).  I promised myself that it wouldn't be the end of eating out, but just an opportunity to recalibrate my spending.  I was ready.

I lasted approximately two weeks.

It took me two weeks to realize just how many of my favourite moments happen in restaurants and how much I would miss out on if I based my spending on an arbitrary budget instead of conscious choice.  In those two weeks, I spent a Friday night eating takeout with a friend and her young baby while talking about the crazy rollercoaster ride that is being a new attending.  I spent a Monday night at a ramen bar with another friend hearing about her struggles with infertility.  And I spent another Friday night with my partner eating in a cheezy 80s style Greek restaurant because we were both too worn out from the week to even think about cooking.

After the two weeks, in which I didn't quite manage to stick to my eating out budget, I realized that food is my sacred cow.  I'm quite happy to live in a modest home and drive a car that my physician friends make fun of and never own a Coach purse.  But I'm not happy saying no to friends or my partner when they want to get together over food.

So bring on the ridiculous food budget.  I'm ready for some tapas.

How Am I Doing So Far?

This week was my first week of call since I wrote my post about how to not hate call so much.  (I've been on call for 21 of the past 42 days.  Too much call.)  As the week approached, I tried very hard to say no to anything but the most essential of activities.  I deferred dinner with a friend until next week.  I said no to doing anything with my Mom.  I was ruthless with turning people down.

And then the week arrived.

Monday night a group of medical school friends whom I only see a few times a year were getting together for dinner, and I couldn't say no.

Tuesday night my girlfriend's parents invited us over for a birthday dinner.

Wednesday night a friend was visiting from Egypt and wanted to meet for dinner.

Thursday night we decided to go see a new house that had just come onto the market.

Friday night was trivia night at my girlfriend's church.  And I love trivia.

Over the weekend, we have seen three more houses, gone out for breakfast twice, gone for an impromptu coffee with my Mom and brother, watched my niece in a volleyball tournament, shopped at two craft markets, seen Romeo Dallaire speak, and gone for another birthday dinner with my girlfriend's friends*.

I apparently am incapable of just saying no to anything.  If it sound remotely interesting, and especially if it involves food, I am there.  Regardless of how tired or extroverted out I may happen to be.  Regardless of how much I need to just be quiet and still after the stress of a call week.  Regardless of what I say in my blog posts.

And yet...somehow this week worked for me.  I gave myself the option of saying no to things, but when it came time to exercise that option, I never wanted to.  I got to do a lot of fun and interesting things with people whom I love over the course of the week, and it felt pretty good.  I'm not quite sure why it was okay this time when it wasn't the last time I was on call, but somehow it was.  Maybe it was knowing that I could say no to things without guilt?  Maybe it was only being on call for one week and knowing that I would have a long stretch of recovery afterwards?

I haven't the foggiest clue, but I'm very glad it did.  And I'm hoping that it will continue to do so when the next stretch of call comes around.

Responsibility

I just had a very long phone conversation with a friend trying to figure out what to do with a mutual patient.  She is the patient's attending, and I the consultant, and we were stuck deciding between two similarly bad alternatives.  Pick option A, and the patient might die.  Pick option B, and the patient might still die.

We discussed whether there were other options for treatment (none that we could see).  We debated the pros and cons of each option (essentially equal).  We tried to think of similar cases we had seen that could possible guide our decision (none that either of us had seen).  In the end, after applying all of our cumulative knowledge and wisdom and experience to the case, we essentially flipped a coin.

And it feels terrible.  It feels terrible that there is no clear answer to this difficult question, and it feels terrible knowing that we are the ones who are responsible for this decision.  There is no longer an attending who takes responsibility for everything.  We are the attendings now.  And at times it is completely and utterly terrifying.

Doing the Unthinkable

Yesterday afternoon I left work at 1 PM.

This may not sound all that amazing to you, given that people sometimes leave work early for doctors' appointments or other things that need to be done during working hours.  What made it amazing is that I had absolutely nothing to go to.  I was simply done my work for the day*.

As a fellow, I never intentionally came late or left early; it was completely unacceptable to not be at work for the full day.  The few times I was late because of a missed alarm or unexpected traffic, I was inevitably met by a supervisor who would look at his watch and say "Slacking off, are we?"  It didn't matter if I was finished my work for the day or if I could accomplish my work more efficiently in the quiet of my own home:  if it was between the hours of 9 am and 5 PM**, I was expected to be at my desk or in the hospital.

As an attending, on the other hand, I set my own schedule (within certain limits).  I decide when I take call, I decide how many clinics a week I work, and I decide when to do research (if at all).  The freedom is awesome!  And while I have no intention of abusing this freedom, I do intend to make the most of it.  Before starting work, I decided that I will no longer stay at work just to make an appearance.  If I finish my work before 5 PM, I will go home early and enjoy my life outside of the hospital. 

I don't expect this to happen often, and I'm sure there will be days when I make up for it by staying far past 5 PM.  But on the days when I can go home in the early afternoon, I fully intend to do it.  And I intend to enjoy every minute of the kitchen gadget store browsing/cooking with copious amounts of zucchini/napping that I do with my time off.

*Of course, as soon as I left the hospital I got paged to go back, but such is life.

**If you're a resident/physician/other hard-working person who can only dream of a (mostly) 9-5 schedule, I'm sorry.  My chosen career is awesome.